Blogs

Copycat cars continue to be a Chinese art form

The BJ80C sits on a slightly longer wheelbase than the Mercedes-Benz G class.

Photo

Jay Ramey is an associate editor with Autoweek, an affiliate of Automotive News.

A number of Chinese cars in the 1950s and 1960s got their start from American and Russian designs, but the country is still having trouble advancing its own design language.

China is the largest automotive market in the world, but automakers there still routinely "borrow" exterior designs from Western companies, though the practice has become more controversial in 2017 than in the past.

Just recently, Land Rover and Chinese automaker Landwind (no relation) got into a legal skirmish over the Landwind X7's more than passing resemblance to the Range Rover Evoque. That skirmish ended predictably -- Chinese courts sided with Landwind, and Chinese consumers can now buy something that looks a lot like an Evoque for a third of the price.